


Everybody Knits

by teatearsandbbc



Category: Captain America (Movies), James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Implied Relationship, James Bond knits, John knits, Knitting, Q knits, Sherlock knits, Slight Crack fic, Steve Knits, bucky knits, everybody knits, literally all of them - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-03-26 01:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13847574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teatearsandbbc/pseuds/teatearsandbbc
Summary: Knitting can tell you a lot about a person. How they knit, what they knit, why they knit. Everyone knits a little differently, and each knitter is interesting in their own way.These are stories of our favorite characters knitting. They're interesting men, and so they knit in interesting ways. Sherlock makes gorgeous Aran jumpers for John or eye-melting Stephen West shawls, depending the mood he's in. John knits steadily, traditionally, with all the care he used as a soldier and a doctor. James knits with steel and always in black. Q knits the most elaborate origami shapes that fold into perfect socks, and pi shawls when he's feeling lazy. Bucky knits for sanity. Steve knits for Bucky. Everyone knits to tell their story in loops on loops of yarn.(Note: You don't have to be a knitter to understand or enjoy these stories.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, there are some knitting terms I use here, so if you're not familiar with knitting, there's a glossary of basic knitting terms available at http://www.craftexpert.co.uk/glossaryknittingterminology.html
> 
> I also mention English and Continental-style knitting, as well as a couple of others. These have to do with how the stitches are formed. For a basic 5 minute video demonstrating the difference between English and Continental style, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qooz_gTsZ_w
> 
> If there are any other questions about terms, let me know in the comments!

 

Unsurprisingly, Sherlock knitted like he did everything else: furiously, brilliantly, and with more expertise than everyone else in the street combined.

He would sit in his chair, curled into a tight knot of spidery limbs, one long needle jammed under his armpit and the other flashing so fast it seemed to flicker. Stitches would fly off his needle, knits and purls dancing seamlessly together and his biting acerbity muted for once as all his vast intellect turned to loops upon loops of yarn.

The day John had thought to teach him to knit had likely saved both their lives. Sherlock had been in a post-case fit, storming around the flat, growling and all but throwing things at the walls. John had been trying to count stitches. When Sherlock walked past him, snapped “Seventy-eight,” spitefully, and flopped down in the opposite armchair to glare at John as though daring him to contradict Sherlock, John had slammed down his own knitting, snagged an extra ball of yarn and some needles out of the basket he kept by his chair, and shoved them into Sherlock’s hands.

“Now pay attention,” he had said, putting on his best _Do not argue with me right now_ tone. “You hold the yarn looped around your finger and your thumb like this – no, Sherlock, on your left hand – that’s right – and tuck the tails into your hand.”

John had walked him through the basics of the long-tail cast on and the knit and purl stitches, and five minutes later, he was sitting back in his own chair watching a shockingly placid Sherlock work his way across row after row, experimenting with different combinations of knit and purl stitches. While John finished counting his stitches, found the stitch he had inadvertently picked up five rows back, corrected the error, and picked back up on his pattern, Sherlock reinvented garter stitch, stockinette, ribbing, twisted ribbing (an accident, that, though he’d never admit it), seed stitch, moss stitch, broken rib, and basket weave. It was the quietest evening in 221B John could remember in months.

When he had gone to bed, fitting needle tips over the ends of his own needles, John had left Sherlock curled up in his armchair with his chaotically-patterned bit of knitting tucked to his chest, still on the needles, and his laptop balanced on his knees, appearing to be in the midst of giving himself a thorough education on the principles of knitting.

John had come out the next morning to find Sherlock knitting Continental-style backwards across a row of exquisitely-formed Dutch braid cables. A second later, he had noticed the yarn Sherlock had selected for this project was the wool John had been intending to make his next pair of socks out of.

While Sherlock’s penchant for commandeering John’s possessions for his own whims had extended seamlessly into his knitting life, leaving John on more than one occasion resisting the urge to rip out all of Sherlock’s work and take back his own yarn, John did have to admit the times between cases were much improved as a result of Sherlock’s new hobby. The consulting detective spent the first week after John had first shoved needles into his hand knitting almost nonstop. He learned to knit English, Continental, with a knitting belt, tensioning the yarn around his neck, forwards, backwards, left-handed, right-handed, and armpit-style. This last turned out to be his favorite. He would sit for hours as row after row flew off his needles, his right needle clamped firmly under his arm and his left hand manipulating stitches with the same grace and effortless fluidity with which he played the violin.

Sometimes, Sherlock would be in a good mood when he knitted. If he had just wrapped up a particularly interesting case or if John was careful to keep Anderson out of his way during crime scenes, Sherlock would cast on breathtakingly intricate Aran jumpers. Cable patterns would weave in and out of valleys of purl stitches like woolen rivers, each telling a story of their own. Sherlock would craft thick, sturdy cuffs and three-needle-bind-off shoulder seems out of creamy Shetland wool. He would knit endlessly, frequently finishing off a sweater in a week. If it was near John’s birthday, John would usually be gifted the completed product and would wear it when the nights grew chilly and damp enough that the cold would only be warded off by such jumpers.

In the summer, when it was too hot for thick woolen yarn, Sherlock would spin off his needles shawls so delicate they would seem to be no more than cobwebs. Yarn overs, unerringly placed, would fly past in a whirl of dancing, spiderlike fingers, pale against Sherlock’s dark shirts. He would knit until his eyes turned bloodshot, churning out a tangled mess of translucent fabric until, at last, he would bind off the last stitch. John always tried to be around when he finished one of these shawls. Because then Sherlock would block the shawl, soaking it in water. John wasn’t a religious man, but the symbolism of rebirth through baptism couldn’t be lost even on him when Sherlock would pull from the bath a work so exquisite John could hardly believe it was the same spaghetti-mess that had gone in. The detective would pin the shawl out to dry every bit as carefully as he might pin open a dissection specimen. The finished shawls usually went to Mrs. Hudson, who cried every time Sherlock presented her with one.

As often as not, however, Sherlock was not in a good mood while he was knitting. Bored between cases, in a strop over Anderson and Donovan, simply in a contrary frame of mind, he would drag out of his basket the most eye-melting shawls he could contrive. He had taken a fancy to Stephen West’s shawls almost instantly, and he seemed to take a twisted delight in driving the eccentric designer’s patterns to all new heights of loudness. Sherlock would combine tencel, wool, mohair, cashmere, acrylic, silk, bamboo, and appalling novelty yarns in the most absurdly clashing colors he could lay hands on, working them up into riots of color which spilled, extravagant to the point of being garish, across his lap and onto the almost meek-looking rug. Although he tended to give away most of his knitting, Sherlock kept these shawls and frequently wore them wrapped over his dressing gown. He still managed to make them look elegant.

One Christmas, John came downstairs to find a small wrapped package sitting on his chair. He opened the gift to find a small piece of beautifully-worked knitting that looked oddly familiar. It was a small sleeve with a hole open on one side and a button in the middle to hold it together. As he stared at the piece, John realized suddenly it was worked in the same pattern as the sweater he had worn the first night he had moved in with Sherlock. It was one of his favorites, and he wore it frequently. The next second, he realized that the woolen little piece was a mug cozy. He glanced back down at the box that had held the gift and realized there was a note. John picked it up, stared at it for a long moment, and buried his face in his hands, unsure whether to laugh or be annoyed.

_So you and your tea can match. Merry Christmas. – S_


	2. Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond knits with steel, and always in black.

Bond liked to knit on missions. He worked on double pointed needles that would tuck neatly into an inner pocket. Small, discreet, useful weapons in a pinch. He talked Q into making him some titanium needles with specially sharpened points, and though the quartermaster complained the entire way through the project, Bond knew he was secretly intrigued.

Knitting filled the hours waiting around for a mark to show their face or Q branch to dig up some new intelligence. He had first learned at Skyfall, years and years back. Kincaid’s wife had taught him one September afternoon when the air was beginning to take on the bite of oncoming winter. She had put wooden needles and soft, bouncy wool into his hands (what those hands didn’t know then, Bond mused now as his fingers worked through the familiar motions) and taught him the first basic loops. His stitches had been messy, then, but wool is forgiving, and Kincaid’s wife had kept that first lopsided swatch of fabric.

Bond didn’t knit with wool now. He preferred linen, cotton, silk, steel. Yarns that had no flexibility, no forgiveness. You had to do the job right, or not at all. So he said with a smile as flinty as his yarn when some of the newer, bolder members of MI6 asked with raised eyebrows about his hobby. Knitting, like espionage, was a precise thing. You had to know just what steps to take when. A mistake now could mean disaster later. But by the same token, you had to know when to break the rules if you wanted to make something that would last.

What Bond didn’t tell anyone was that he liked linen for the way it softened over time. With wear and with use, the fabric would relax, wearing down from a genesis of sharp edges and stiff angles into something gentler. It became softer to the touch, and it would drape with the sort of eloquence that only comes with time and experience. 

On mission, though, Bond nearly always knitted with steel. Linen was too easily bloodstained, as was silk. Those yarns were for nights when no one would die, at least not as his hands. Nights when drinks and lovers would glide through his fingers as silently as the yarn, when finesse was the name of the game. But when death was coming (Bond could scent it like blood on the water), he tucked steel into his jacket pocket. His favorite yarn was spiderweb-thin, silk wrapped around a steel center. He could as easily garrote a man with it as work a line of stitches, and he often did. He knitted murder into his work, and he always knitted in black. Black did not show bloodstains.

As in most aspects of his life, Bond could move among the different forms of knitting as easily as if he had been born to them. Peruvian knitting came as easily to him as Continental, but all things being equal, Bond preferred English style knitting. He would loop his yarn twice around his trigger finger and settle into the rhythm of the row, fiber rasping over calluses and scars. He would mark off time row by row, stitch by stitch, each placed with intent and the same deadly accuracy that put a bullet in his targets.

Bond didn’t bother with gloves or socks or sweaters or fussy, intricate designs that couldn’t be abandoned mid-row. As he told an affronted Q one afternoon while they sat in the quartermaster’s office waiting for Tanner to show up and knitting, “If I wanted to count while I worked, I would cross stitch.” No, Bond preferred projects that could be dropped at a moment’s notice, shoved into a pocket mid-stitch and picked up after the mission was over, the extraction point met, briefing complete, Queen and Country defended. He made scarves and wraps and once, just to be contrary, a blanket that couldn’t possibly keep anyone warm. He left it on the couch in Q’s office with a bow and no note.

Bond’s projects were, at a glance, flat planes of unyielding material worked in blacks and greys, simple and to the point. Uncomplicated. But if you tilted them so the stitches caught the light, there was an entirely different story. It gave Bond a smug sort of pleasure to see one of the Q branch minions stop and stare as Bond passed them at the right angle and they realized that his scarf was textured in the same pattern as his gun’s bullet striations. He would work in subtle, winding cables that mimicked the path of the Thames; texture patterns that spelled out messages in Morse code – names of targets, names of lovers, names of enemies defeated, names of missions, names of places he had almost died; if he was feeling brooding, wraps with an imprint of the shooting range target sheets with a yarn over hole in the chest and another in the head – execution by needle. Only a very few people were sharp enough to decode all of his projects. Q (who, of course, had figured out all of them yet) told him once that there was entire forum on the MI6 servers dedicated to the minions developing conspiracy theories about what messages, if any, his knitting harbored. 

But the biggest secret of his knitting, Bond kept to himself, tucked inside his bedside table with his second-favorite gun. When he was home, he knitted in cashmere. He would curl on his couch, bare feet tucked beneath a pillow, and slide butter-soft stitches over rosewood needles. This yarn wasn’t red for blood, blue for country, black like guns and death and betrayal. It was green, deep, verdant green, like the trees had been at Skyfall in the depth of summer. Green like Christmas garland hung on a mantel, green like the weeds in the lake he had swum in as a boy, green that filled his good dreams, the ones between nightmares. He knitted socks with that green cashmere, and he only wore them on special occasions. He always made sure nobody saw them. He treasured them more than his gun.

When he visited Skyfall for the last time, his commander by his side in the car as they fled from and towards Silva, Bond made a special trip out to the gamekeeper’s house while M assembled shrapnel bombs. Kincaid’s wife had long since died, but Bond knew the gamekeeper hadn’t been able to bring himself to throw out her things. In the silence of the room, Bond lifted the lid on the cedar chest and moved aside the old, yellowed wedding dress, the bundles of sweaters she had made for her husband, the packet of letters from her son. Below these treasures, wrapped carefully in a handkerchief, Bond found what he was looking for. The first scrap of knitting he had ever made. The stitches were even more unruly than he’d remembered, and somehow with time, the wool hadn’t lost its bounce. Bond ran fingers (fingers which throttled, fingers which pulled triggers, fingers which didn’t pull triggers, fingers which traced out burning lines across lovers’ skin, fingers which formed loops upon loops of linen, unforgiving, absolute) over the lumpy stitches, and for one half-second, he ached for the boy who would grow to become him.

Then he tucked the little swatch into his breast pocket next to his current knitting, replaced the rest of the treasures, and left the house. Five hours later, Skyfall was reduced to rubble. 

After, when Bond stood over a casket holding a body that was far too small and trying to stop feeling, he reached into his breast pocket and drew out the little square of lumpy fabric. Without a word, he reached into the casket and tucked it into Mawdsley’s palm. Then, squaring his shoulders, Bond turned on his heel and walked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, my little yarny heart is just delighted with these stories. I hope you're enjoying them half as much as I am! I'm planning to post Bucky's chapter next week and then start in on everybody's partners. If there's a character you'd like to see added to this work, let me know! If I know them, I'll try to give it a go. And as always, if there's a term in here you don't understand, let me know and I'll try to work in an explanation or at least add a note explaining it. Thanks for reading!


	3. Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At first, Bucky knits for Steve. Later, he knits for sanity.

Bucky Barnes learned to knit the winter of 1932. That November, the weather turned cold and Steve’s circulation couldn’t keep up. He would sit as close to the radiator as he could, wrapped in whatever threadbare, too-big shirts Bucky could dig up for him, and shiver. He’d deny to his grave that he was cold, but Bucky watched the tremors rack his skinny form, and he worried.

One afternoon, Bucky spotted one of their neighbors, an immigrant woman who lived a few floors down, emerging from her apartment wrapped in a shawl so large and cozy, Bucky immediately thought he could wrap Steve up in it twice. He stopped the old woman and asked her if she would teach him how to make wraps like that. She smiled, led him inside, and taught him with quick motions and broken English how to do the basic knit and purl stitches. Bucky took the yarn and needles she gave him, thanked her profusely, and spent the rest of that evening working on his little lump of fabric. He knitted every spare moment he got for the next several weeks. When he ran out of yarn, he spent his pocket money on some cheap wool and carried on. The first part of the scarf was lumpy, pulled in strange places, tapered out to a disconcerting width before plunging back to its original dimensions, and generally wobbled on until it grew into something a little neater. Bucky presented it proudly to Steve a few weeks later. The young man smiled, wrapped himself in it immediately, and didn’t shiver as much. Bucky was pleased as punch with himself.

He spent that whole winter scraping together pocket money to spend on wool and knitting scarves and wraps and hats and socks and mittens.  He kept some for himself, but mostly he knitted for Steve. They were both warmer, and Bucky was surprised to discover that knitting brought him a sort of peace he wasn’t used to feeling.

Then came the army and the fall from the train, and everything after. Bucky didn’t like to think about those days – what little of them he could remember. Blurs of grey steel and red blood and black leather. The Winter Soldier did not knit. He didn’t even remember how.

But like he always, always did, Steve came for Bucky, and Bucky remembered. Along with flashes of blond hair and blue eyes in a much skinnier face came memories of worrying over flicking needles and woolen loops. He had to keep Steve warm. That was the first clear thought that came back to Bucky Barnes. 

When Bucky first picked up yarn and needles again and tried to knit, he could hardly hold onto the needles for shaking so hard. He had never been so afraid to try anything in his life. What if he couldn’t? What if his metal fingers, so suited for snapping necks like twigs and ripping out steering wheels, broke his needles in half? What if they couldn’t form the stitches? What if something as innocent and gentle and good as knitting was no longer a possibility for someone like him? Bucky didn’t think he could stand that final proof.

But he took up aluminum needles and light blue wool, and, trembling in every limb, moving with agonizing slowness, he taught himself again how to hold the yarn.

The stitches came slowly at first. His fingers trembled and clattered against the needles, and he dropped them more than once. He broke the yarn a few times, a nervous twitch of his left index finger enough to snap the wool fibers. Cursing under his breath, he stripped the old stitches off the needles and began again. _Yarn wrapped around the pinky and first finger. In through the front of the stitch. Wrap the yarn around the back. Pull the needle down through, and take the stitch off the needle. In through the front. Wrap around the back. Down through. And off._

Stitch by stitch, Bucky remembered again the rhythm in his wrists and fingers. The _swish-click_ began to grow as the rattling of his nervous fingers stilled. When he finished the first full row of neat knit stitches without breaking the yarn, Bucky felt strangely like crying.

He learned how to tension the yarn in the joints of his new hand without getting it pinched there. He felt, in the same strangely distant way he felt everything else with his left hand, the needle clicking against his fingers, almost too mechanical. He watched, hope sputtering to life inside him, as his little swatch of blue fabric grew. When it was finished, when he ran out of yarn, he held the little piece of knitting, staring at it for hours, this tangible reminder that there was a way back.

It took a long time, but Bucky’s confidence grew. He switched to wooden needles, preferring the warmth of them, and he picked yarns that were soft and warm. He found, as he had nearly eighty-five years before, that the rhythm of knitting cooled the incandescent rage that boiled so frequently under the surface. He could lose memories in the _swish-click_ of the motions, leaving them knitted into the fabric several rows behind. 

Even more surprisingly, knitting helped Bucky remember. It seemed there was memory trapped in his fingers, worked out stitch by stitch. He remembered times with Steve, before the army. Sitting in their too-cold apartment, stitching away on a shawl (it was brown, he remembered) while Steve shaded his latest drawing. Talking about nothing much as they whiled the hours away. Working on a pair of socks in bright yellow yarn one of the guys in the unit had bought him as a prank, watching snowflakes come drifting like starlight out of the evening sky. Curling his fingers into the gloves Steve had given him when they first made camp on that long walk back to the base. How proud Steve had sounded when he told Bucky he had made them for him.

Somehow, knitting became Bucky’s sanity. He stayed around New York so he could visit a different yarn shop every week (old habits died hard, it seemed), and whenever he visited one, he bought all the baby yarn they had. Bucky spent a lot of time knitting with baby yarn. Somehow, making the tiny, delicate pieces felt like penance. He was brutal, an assassin, a ruined monster of a person, barely even a man. He killed as easily as he slept. But this was something pure and small and gentle. In this, if in nothing else, he could be merciful. He had a contact in the slummier parts of the city, and he would drop off the things he made with them every couple of weeks so they could give them to kids who were too cold. 

It was a November afternoon when he bought a skein of deep blue alpaca from a small yarn shop in Brooklyn. He wound the yarn into a ball by hand and cast on just as the sun was beginning to dance down behind the skyline of New York City. Bucky was holed up that week in an abandoned apartment building, one that was slated for destruction the next week. There was a large west-facing window on one of the top floors, and Bucky folded himself down onto the floor in front of it and cast on a few dozen stitches. He worked his way across row after row as the sun set, venturing deeper and deeper into memories as darkness fell around him and his fingers went through the familiar _swish-click._

Blue eyes looking at him out of a pale face, a field of blue swimming in front of his vision in a dark lab, blue water rushing towards him as he dove to grab a blue-spangled arm, a circle of blue flying towards him, and his arm was extended to catch it…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I say this every single time, but I am having so much fun with these stories! I think it's my favorite way yet to look at these characters. Thanks so much to everyone who's commented and left kudos! Both of those things make my day. I'm trying my best to make sure these stories are enjoyable for everyone, knitters and non-knitters alike, so if there's a question about a term or technique, please please let me know either in the comments or at teatearsandbbc@gmail.com. In that spirit, endless thanks to my two beautiful, brilliant, non-knitting betas, Emily and Elizabeth, for making sure these stories are coherent on all levels. Also, drop by my email if you'd just like to chat about this fic, any of my other fics, or Sebastian Stan's new (distressing) haircut.
> 
> PS: Next week, I'm planning to post John, followed by Q and then Steve. At a friend's suggestion, I may be swapping around the order of some of these chapters for the sake of introducing knitting more coherently. I'm also entertaining the possibility of introducing Bruce Banner into our little knitterly lineup. If you'd like to see him or any other character join this story, let me know!


	4. John

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In knitting, as in many other aspects of his life, John was a traditionalist.

In knitting, as in many other aspects of his life, John was a traditionalist. He believed in doing things the right way, carefully and with all the precision you could muster. He knitted English style with English wool, and none of the flashy novelty yarns or wild patterns had ever been enough to tempt him away from the good, solid, dependability of the classics.

John’s mother had taught him to knit when he was seven or eight years old. She was a nurse, and as soon as John began saying he wanted to be a doctor, she had put wool and needles into his hands.

“If you want to be a doctor, you have to have good hands,” she had told him, showing him how to hold the yarn to cast on. “The best way I know to develop good hands is to knit.” And with that matter-of-fact declaration, she had shown him how to cast on.

In fact, if not for that statement, John’s knitting career might have been very short-lived indeed. He was something of a restless boy, getting into fights too often to be called well-behaved, but too dedicated to his studies to be called unruly. He devoted himself completely to the pursuit of being a doctor, and in that spirit, John spent at least thirty minutes every day knitting, determined to develop the best hands he could.

It wasn’t really until he was a young man that John learned to love knitting for its own sake. He joined the army immediately after turning eighteen, and during the few free moments he got during basic training, knitting turned out to be a way to keep himself grounded. He was doing this to become a doctor, he reminded himself as he placed each neat stitch on his needle. This wasn’t about killing or violence or a misguided idea about masculinity. This was to help heal people. And so through those years attending school, doing tours with the army, working his way through medical school, leaving to do his first tour as an army doctor, the quiet, steady rhythm of knitting carried on in the background of his life.

It was when he got shot that everything went wrong, on so many levels. Along with all the other disaster that wound brought him, John discovered almost immediately after returning home that he couldn’t knit. His shoulder hurt too badly when the motions jostled it, and when it wasn’t aching badly enough to make John grit his teeth and blink away tears, the tremor in his hand made it impossible to hold needles. He tried a few times, but each attempt ended with him throwing the tangled mess that always resulted at the opposite wall and staring blankly ahead, trying to see past the rage flaring inside his mind.

Then came Sherlock. A few rapid-fire deductions, a seven-word question, a foot race across half of London, and a dinner over forgotten injuries, and John suddenly found his life alight once more. Emotions other than impotent rage became familiar again, and suddenly his life seemed to have a purpose and direction. Much as he had learned to run again, thoughtlessly, just following Sherlock blindly into the cacophony that was their life, John began to knit again. He was three inches into knitting a scarf before he remembered he hadn’t been able to knit. He stopped and stared at his work, stitches as neat and orderly as ever, for a full five minutes before he shook his head and carried on, a small smile quirking at the corner of his mouth.

Much as he always had, John liked to knit good, solid, relatively simple projects. Hats, scarves, and thick, cozy socks. Socks were John’s favorite. He would pick out creamy merino in rich colors, select one of his favorite basic patterns, and cast on for his gauge swatch. John always made sure his gauge swatches were perfect. He would knit the little squares exactly as the patterns specified, bind them off, block them to the indicated size, and carefully measure how many stitches and rows were held in each inch. If he was a quarter of an inch off, John would start again.

When he had gotten his gauge swatch just right, John would pin it carefully into his knitting journal. The little book brought him no small amount of satisfaction. On each page was information about a project he had made, laid out in clear, block letters. His gauge swatch with notes on what size needles and what yarn he had used were on the left page, while the right held the name of the pattern, the designer, the source, notes about the project, and a Polaroid of the finished product. John was rather ridiculously proud of it and ignored the scathing looks Sherlock shot in his direction every time he pulled it out.

John usually gave away the hats and scarves he knitted. Sometimes they went to Mrs. Hudson or Stamford, sometimes to a cancer patient at the hospital. Greg got a few pieces, and once, John had even foisted a maroon hat on a grimacing Mycroft while Sherlock all but cackled with glee from the kitchen. The picture of that project in the knitting journal showed a deeply displeased Mycroft with the hat jammed onto his head and John standing next to him grinning ear to ear. Sherlock had taken the picture twice, and John was certain he kept the copy pinned up somewhere in his bedroom.

But John kept the socks he made. Little in life gave him as much simple pleasure as pulling on a pair of hand-knitted socks to guard against the cold floors of Baker Street. He made thick socks with subtle texture patterns, and he would sit in his chair, tea steaming by his elbow and a new pair of socks on his double pointed needles, even as he wriggled his toes into the fibers of another pair. When the weather was miserable, such warmth brought him a smug sort of joy.

Six months after John moved into 221B, he knitted the first pair of socks he ever gave away. Even though he knew it was ridiculous, he made them out of deep blue cashmere, and he worked a simple two-strand cable down the outside of each. Sherlock had stopped paying attention to his knitting endeavors by that point, other than to make snide comments when John was trying to sort out a mistake, or occasionally to compliment a finished piece. John sat in his chair in front of the fire and worked row after row, giving the work all the careful, deliberate attention he had devoted to being a soldier or a doctor. When he bound off on them and blocked them, he was certain that they were absolutely perfect.

Sherlock came downstairs one morning to find a folded parcel of blue fabric with a note pinned to the top of it. It read, _Thank you for giving me back my legs again. I hope these do well to keep you on yours. Take care of them. If you felt them, I’ll kill you. John_

Neither of them ever spoke about it directly, but Sherlock did wear the socks more frequently than any other pair, and John happened to know they were afforded a special position in the index. It didn’t occur to John until long after the Reichenbach fall that, when he had cleaned out Sherlock’s sock drawer in one of his few attempts to deal with the reality of his friend’s death, that pair of socks had been nowhere to be found. 

John wondered off and on about the socks over the next two years. Mostly, he tried not to think about them. But the first night back in 221B, the first night after Sherlock returned, Sherlock kicked off his shoes when he sat down, and John happened to look at his feet. The socks he wore were deep blue, darned in places, pilled in others, but obviously well-worn and well-loved. For a moment, John found he couldn’t breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the Sherlock section is (for the moment) complete! I think after everyone from this round is posted, I'll rearrange the chapters into an order that will make more sense. For now, I don't want to throw anyone off.
> 
> I'm doing my utmost to make sure these stories are accessible to knitters and non-knitters alike, so if you see a term you don't know or something that isn't clear, please let me know! In that same spirit, endless thanks to my two resplendent betas, Emily and Elizabeth, who have always remained willing to indulge my yarny nonsense.
> 
> And thank you to you for reading! If you like the story, kudos are excellent. I read comments about 17 times, and most of all when I'm in need of some cheer. If you'd like to talk about this story, characters you'd like to see added to this collection, or why anyone would voluntarily knit socks on double pointed needles, email me at teatearsandbbc@gmail.com


	5. Q

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knitting, it transpired, was math made tangible.
> 
> In which Q pushes knitting to its logical limits and then outsmarts all of MI6 and a particularly smug 00 agent.

Q learned to knit as a stay against boredom more than anything else. He had a free afternoon while all his computers were running updates (it was ridiculous, he thought, that he had the highest tech the queen’s money could buy and it still took two hours to do a bloody software update), and Bond had left a skein of merino and some needles sitting on the corner of his desk. The infuriating double-o seemed to think if he got Q hooked on knitting, he could talk him into making a set of titanium double-pointed needles. Absurd.

 

But the needles and yarn were just sitting there, and Q hated the “my computers are updating, let’s start counting things in my office” game. So after spinning around in his desk chair until he was dizzy twice and checking the progress bars on his updates fifteen times, Q picked up the yarn and needles. A quick YouTube search on his phone gave him the basics, casting on, knitting, purling, and then he was off. And damn if he wasn’t hooked instantly. Knitting, it transpired, was math made tangible. It was binary, ones and zeros blinking past in knits and purls. It was graphs and equations and the best possible thing to count, stitch after stitch flying off Q’s needles as his fingers adjusted and his knitting got faster. He was enthralled with the absolute ocean of possibilities that seemed to have just opened before him.

 

Q made Bond the bloody titanium needles (and too often, that was a literal description) as thanks for showing him this wonderful new hobby. He ignored the smug smirk that hovered around the corners of the agent’s mouth and in the crinkles of his crow’s feet every time he saw Q knitting.

 

Meanwhile, Q did everything in his power to push knitting to its absolute limits. He knew that it was possible to create any three-dimensional object from the correct flat shape, and he made it his personal mission to convert as many of those into knitting as he could. He started with the Yarn Harlot’s perfect baby hat and then moved on to a strange elephantine shape that folded into a perfect pair of mittens. Then he started making long, winding shapes that folded origami-like into socks that hugged the feet just right. Then he started knitting hyperbolic planes and Lorenz manifolds, which he had to admit weren’t as useful as the socks.

 

After the manifolds, Q moved on to experimenting with color. He looked up pictures of Fair Isle sweaters and then started knitting his own. He produced a stunning sweater with no fewer than twenty-four individual patterns in it and, just in case he ever decided he wanted to knit another one, Q wrote down the pattern after he finished. One of the minions who also happened to knit seemed floored when she found out about this.

 

When work was taxing and Q wanted a mental break, he knitted pi shawls. Getting back to the basic geometry of circles – area equals pi times the radius squared – was soothing. It made for a nice break from the complex math Q regularly did in pursuit of his ongoing mission to bend reality to suit his will and the will of MI6. He could lose himself in the simplicity of counting yarn overs for his lace pattern (because, of course, his work would still have _some_ interest to it) and increasing the six times Elizabeth Zimmerman (in Q’s private estimation, the reigning queen of knitting) prescribed. He often found himself thinking about her words regarding her pi shawls when he was knitting on them: “Towards the end, by the time your state of mind has become more and more frayed, and your need of mindless comfort greater and greater, your knitting will be nothing but almost endless rounds of hundreds of stitches with no thinking required at all.” Perfect, Q thought.

 

Q loved all of his knitting projects. He wouldn’t consider any of his projects, knitting or otherwise, acceptable if he wasn’t sure enough of their value to love them. But the project he was most delighted by was a scarf he knitted for Bond.

 

MI6 had been slowly closing in on a major international crime syndicate that was based out of the Ural Mountains for going on two years. They were a slippery group, and trying to track down and take out their operatives was, in Q’s opinion not unlike performing neurosurgery. One wrong move at the wrong time, and the whole thing would be spoiled.

 

Finally, after months and months of effort, MI6 got a break. Word came in that there would be a chance, a window of opportunity, in three months. Bond was selected for the mission. He was to infiltrate the headquarters of the syndicate, get access to the leader’s personal computer, and use a piece of code Q had been developing that would gather contact information and IP addresses of anyone who had interacted with any account in that computer for the last six months.

 

The computer was equipped with a network interface card that collected information on all incoming and outgoing traffic on the computer. It was a big part of the reason Q couldn’t just hack into their system from London. As soon as his IP address got flagged as being from an unauthorized location, firewalls thicker than those around the Tower of London started flying up. It wasn’t until one of the operatives in the organization had been captured and interrogated that MI6 had been able to learn just what was stopping Q’s efforts.

 

Bond had walked into Q Branch one day to find Q in the midst of watching his latest hacking efforts on this mission come crashing down around his ears. Q was swearing badly enough to make the queen faint, and the minions standing around were slowly edging away, sliding their laptops out of range of Q’s wrath. Bond stopped a few feet away, a grin on his face and an eyebrow cocked.

 

“Afternoon, Q,” he said.

 

Q’s response had the minions scooting an extra few feet away, several flushing furiously.

 

“Aren’t we touchy today?” Bond replied mildly, his eyes crinkling a little more. He was the only one who seemed unaffected by the almost physical presence of Q’s ire. “I came down to check on how that Urals job is going.”

 

“How do you –” at this point, Q devolved into swearing again, inventing a few new profanities as he went along “– think it’s going?” Q snarled. “Every time I get close at all, their system picks up my location and locks me out.”

 

“What happened to more damage in your pajamas before your first cup of Earl Grey?” Bond asked, his amusement bleeding all over Q’s monitors. At that same moment, the last firewall flew up, blocking Q’s frantic coding attempts, and he was well and truly locked out. He spun to face Bond and stalked forward, one finger pointed like a malediction at the double-o’s face.

 

“You had better get out of my branch _now_ , 007, or on your next mission, I’ll send you with a ball of string and toothpicks.”

 

Bond grinned a little wider, winked at Q, and left, tossing over his shoulder a promise to tell M that Q Branch was to be quarantined until the quartermaster could find his temper again.

 

Q retreated to his office and recommenced swearing where it wouldn’t distress any of the minions. After he had calmed down, however, an idea began to niggle at the back of his mind. His threat to Bond had been empty, but what if… Q pulled out some graph paper and began to sketch.

 

Q knew if the computer was accessed from inside the ringleader’s office, there would be no alarms, no firewalls, no encryption. Just a massive file of hard information that Q could spend the next six months turning into mission locations and targets. If all went to plan, MI6 would have names and locations of all the major players in the group. There was just one small hitch.

 

That same code, if it fell into the hands of the enemy, could be used to access the same information about every single MI6 employee. Agents in the field, reconnaissance workers worldwide, all the way down to the janitors who swept the floors in Q branch. Identities could be stolen, covers could be blown, all of MI6 could come crashing down around their ears if Bond’s mission went wrong. That code had to be protected.

 

While the various department heads schemed, Q quietly continued to develop his idea. He made sure it was solid first, that it would be infallible, and once he was certain, he went to M.

 

“Don’t worry about securing the code,” he told his commander. “I’ve got it taken care of.”

 

“Care to share with the class?” M asked, one eyebrow raised.

 

“No, not this time, I think,” Q replied. “I guarantee this code will be so secure, even Bond won’t be able to crack it.”

 

M wasn’t happy about it, but in the end, they came to an agreement, and Q started work. For two months, he knitted every spare moment he got, double and triple checking his work, making sure everything was perfect. When he bound off, he blocked the scarf carefully, and then he gave it to Bond. Bond, of course, thought it was a gift.

 

“Now you listen to me, and you listen well, 007,” Q said, pointing a dire finger at Bond. “You do not lose that scarf. On pain of death, you do not let anything happen to that scarf. Don’t let it so much as get snagged. So you understand me fully, I would rather you trash another car than allow the slightest bit of damage to come to that scarf. Do you understand me?”

 

After extracting the strongest promises from Bond that he would take care of the scarf, Q gave him the rest of his equipment and sent him off on his mission. A month later, Bond called him.

 

“I’m in the office on the computer. Now come on, Q, give it up. I need that code now. M said you could get it to me. I’ve only got so long here, so where is it?”

 

“Are you wearing your scarf?” Q asked innocently.

 

“Of course I am,” Bond replied irritably. “You threatened to remove my toenails fiber by fiber if I let anything happen to it.”

 

“Very good, 007,” Q said. “Then you have everything you need. The scarf is the code.”

 

There was absolute silence, both in Q Branch and on Bond’s end of the connection for almost a full fifteen seconds.

 

“What.” Bond said, and his voice was flat.

 

“The scarf. Is. The code,” Q said, trying to keep his glee out of his voice. “There are two solid rows of stockinette at one end to show you which is the right side. From there, knits are ones, purls are zeros. Follow the pattern from bottom to top, right to left, and that’s the code. You do know how to read knitting, don’t you Bond?”

 

More silence followed. Out of the corner of one eye, Q saw M enter the room, arms crossed and eyes leveled at him. Q could almost hear Bond’s internal swearing as the seconds of silence ticked by.

 

“Q, you are without a doubt the cleverest, most infuriating bastard I have ever met,” Bond said finally. “I’ll call you back when I’m ready for extraction.”

 

“Very well, 007,” Q said, and cut communications. He turned to face M, who was still staring at him, face unreadable.

 

“You see?” Q said. “I had it well in hand. Even Bond couldn’t crack it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Fair warning, I am relatively tipsy as I'm writing these notes, so please excuse any nonsense. Except that of the fic, of course.
> 
> First things first. The hat and the Lorenz manifolds Q knits are real life things! Knitters are the best, y'all. Links to follow.  
> http://mentalfloss.com/article/86016/6-math-concepts-explained-knitting-and-crochet  
> http://www.yarnharlot.ca/2011/09/and_kelly_is_ri/
> 
> I continue to be delighted by these fics, and I hope they bring you as much joy as they do me! Next week, I'll be posting Steve next week (hopefully; I just got a new freelance gig, and y'all, it is something else as far as time requirements). After that, I'll be going off the regular posting schedule. I'm planning to work up fics for Alec and Natasha, but they may take a bit.
> 
> As always, if you like this fic, kudos are amazing. Comments are things I read when I need some extra light in my life. If you want to talk to me about this fic, any of my other fics, or what a pair of origami socks would actually look like, feel free to email me at teatearsandbbc@gmail.com.
> 
> Thanks for making my life amazing!


	6. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve learned to knit the same day Bucky signed up for the army. His fingers were clumsy at first, trying to hold the needles the way he would his pencil and forgetting how to tension the yarn around his pinky. But eventually, he found the rhythm of it.
> 
> At first, Steve knits for Bucky. Later, he knits to ground himself. Finally, he knits for fury and for justice.

Steve learned to knit the same day Bucky signed up for the army. Bucky walked into the apartment, and his blue eyes were sad as he looked at Steve. Steve could feel them on the back of his neck as he turned away, pretending to be adjusting the radiator. He always sat right next to it, trying to absorb every meager bit of warmth it put off. He hadn’t had to sit so close the last couple of years, though. Bucky had learned how to knit, and he made Steve sweaters and wraps and socks. They had been woolen and wonderful and warm, and Steve had worn them gratefully.

 

Neither of them said anything as Bucky moved to sit down on their small couch. Nothing needed to be said.

 

It was hours later when Bucky finally spoke. Steve hadn’t met his eyes once since he had walked in the door.

 

“Hey, Steve, come over here,” Bucky said, and his voice was too casual. “If I’m not going to be around to make you socks, you’re just going to have to learn to knit for yourself.”

 

And so Steve sat next to him, staring at Bucky’s hands as he showed Steve how to hold the needles and cast on, how to knit. Bucky had done all the talking and Steve, who really preferred to draw when it came right down to it, paid attention to how to form the stitches. His fingers were clumsy at first, trying to hold the needles the way he would his pencil and forgetting how to tension the yarn around his pinky. But eventually he found the rhythm of it. When Steve finished his first row with no prodding or reminders from Bucky, he finally looked up and met Bucky’s eyes.

 

Bucky wasn’t crying. Bucky never cried. But he was looking at Steve like he couldn’t look enough, like he was terrified if he blinked, Steve might vanish. For a moment, something between them seemed to draw itself tight, humming, tugging, and Steve found his breath caught in his chest, trapped in the shards of his breaking heart as he looked at Bucky looking at him.

 

And then Bucky let out a breath like air hissing out of a balloon and he closed his eyes. Steve let himself look for one moment longer before he, too, turned away and let the spell die.

 

He and Bucky spent the next several nights before Bucky left for boot camp sitting together and knitting, pressed together in a solid line from their shoulders down to their knees, leaning hard against the other.

 

After Bucky left, Steve found that knitting helped soften the edges of the gaping hole in his life. It reminded him of Bucky, of watching him work on another sweater that would keep Steve warm in the winter. He had always been fascinated by the way Bucky’s hands moved when he knitted, and now Steve could see those movements echoed in his own fingers.

 

Steve learned to knit socks as soon as he could. He had in mind that he would send them to Bucky when they were finished, make sure he was warm enough over in Europe. He would sit in the empty, silent apartment in the evenings, listen to the babies cry downstairs, and work on the socks.

 

He had only finished one when Dr. Erskine found him.

 

Almost as soon as Steve found some time to himself again after the serum, he went and retrieved his knitting needles from his room. He needed the reliability and simplicity of knitting. No strange German doctors who bled out in his arms. No taxi doors being used as shields. No being able to run or hit or lift harder than he had ever been able to before. Just stitches, simple, gentle stitches, stitches that felt like Bucky.

 

He snapped three pair of needles in half before he really got a grip on his new strength. But Steve kept going. He held the needles delicately in his hands, cradling them between his now-too-big fingers. A thin strand of wool looped around his left pinky, just the way Bucky taught him, and he kept his grip gentle as he watched the yarn come sliding over his index finger. The stitches he formed were soft, almost too loose at first. They echoed the hummingbird wings beating in his abdomen, fluttering, careful. One stitch, tip of the needle through the loop, wrap the yarn (careful, careful) around the needle, draw it through (don’t grip too hard), and off. Another. Another.

 

Tiny bit by tiny bit, Steve found his way back to the rhythm he had so reluctantly learned that day on the couch. But this time, he hung onto it. This could be his fight back. He didn’t have to only be strong now. He could be soft too.

 

Steve knitted on the plane to Europe. He knitted in the truck on the way out to the camp. When he left to go find Bucky, he tucked his knitting and a pair of gloves he had made into his pack.

 

He never did get to give that pair of socks to Bucky, and it was a long time before Steve was able to knit again. Even after the ice, it was only a reminder of Bucky, of how he had failed, of what he had lost, of what his world had come to. The needles sat like shattered glass in his hands.

 

It wasn’t until the Women’s March of 2017 that Steve picked up needles again. He was reading the news and found an article about people knitting pussy hats in protest. With a growing delight, Steve read about the women firing back at repulsive behavior by taking hold of their power with both hands and wielding it like a bat. These women would march in the streets with hats on display, proving to anyone who dared doubt it that “Pussies grab back.” As soon as he finished reading the article, Steve went and bought needles and as much pink yarn as he could lay hands on. Steve couldn’t march. He knew that. But he could knit.

 

Steve knitted pussy hats by the dozen. He knitted in public as much as he could. Little boys would run up to him, eyes wide, asking if he was Captain America, asking if he was knitting, asking why. He told them every time, yes, he was making a hat for the women who were going to change the world. He was supporting them in the way he could, without trying to take their stage, the way every good man should. The boys would always listen raptly, and a few even asked if they could make a hat too. Steve taught every single one who asked how to knit, and made sure to give them yarn and needles.

 

Sometimes, an old World War II vet would sidle up, looking askance at Steve’s work and asking leading questions. Steve always told them the same thing he told the boys, staring hard into their faces, daring them to say the wrong thing. Funnily enough, none of them ever did, though many did move along with raised eyebrows and an uncomfortable frown.

 

After the Women’s March was over, Steve kept on knitting. He sometimes knitted pussy hats, but he moved more to making regular hats. He could knock one out in an afternoon and he would sell them on an Etsy page Sam had helped him set up. “Buy a hat made by Captain America!” They sold like crazy for amounts of money Steve considered appalling, but which Sam assured him were fair. All the money he made went to charities that helped abused women and children, or trans communities, or homeless populations. Before, Steve had knitted for Bucky, and then to ground himself. Captain America may knock out Hitler with one blow, but he also knits baby blankets on the side. Now, Steve knitted for fury and for justice.

 

One evening, though, Steve was sitting on the couch in his apartment. He picked up some creamy wool and started to cast on for a scarf. He was a good few inches in when Bucky walked in the door.

 

Bucky was carrying a small grocery sack, and Steve watched as he crossed to the kitchen and began removing plums from the bag with his metal hand. Steve glanced back down at his knitting and realized it reminded him of the first scarf Bucky had ever made for him. That memory seemed to come back crystal-clear as Steve worked his way across the next row.

 

He had been sitting beside the radiator, as always. He had always been so cold, he had nearly forgotten. He was trying so hard not to shiver, clenching his teeth together and clutching his arms around his body. Bucky had walked in carrying something behind his back and Steve had seen the worry flash through his eyes, followed by a strange look of triumph, like he had done something clever. He had presented Steve with a scarf, smiling so wide it warmed Steve almost as much as the scarf when he put it on.

 

Bucky turned around to see Steve looking at him as if he couldn’t look enough, as if behind the long hair and haunted face, he could still see that young boy, eyes crinkled in joy. Bucky looked at Steve looking at him and this time, the connection pulled taught between them thrummed not with heartbreak, but with joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, y'all, we made it! This is the last of the regularly scheduled chapter postings, though there will likely be a few added here and there in the next few months. But I just got a new freelance job, bringing me to working about 60 hours a week, and fic writing time has become rather limited.
> 
> I really hope you've enjoyed these stories as much as I've enjoyed writing them. Endless thanks to my two radiant betas, Emily and Elizabeth, who were eternally patient with me going "Can I drop this new section into a text and can you read it on your lunch break I need to post today but I just added this and I don't knoooooooowwwwww." They are beautiful humans in every single way.
> 
> Per one of said beta's suggestion, I may be reorganizing these chapters in a week or so. The planned order will be Bucky, Steve, Sherlock, John, Bond, Q. If you think this is a good idea, or if you hate this idea, please let me know!
> 
> As always, I love hearing from you. If you liked the fic, kudos are amazing. I read comments about a thousand times on days when I need some joy. If you'd like to talk to me more directly (and I will send you a picture of Steve Rogers's ass in return if you do and if that's your style), email me at teatearsandbbc@gmail.com. Thanks for being amazing!

**Author's Note:**

> I've been a knitter for nearly half my life, and it is something I love deeply. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the history of knitting, which I tackled by interviewing nine different knitters about how, why, when, and what they like to knit. I was thrilled to discover how fascinating each knitting story was, and I fell in love with the idea of talking about who people are through the lens of knitting.
> 
> That said, these stories were a delight to me. I love looking at these characters from the perspective of how they would knit, what they would knit, why they would knit. I hope you like them as much. If there are other characters you'd like to see added to this fic, please let me know! If I know them, I'll try to write them.
> 
> I had a couple of non-knitting friends read over this to try to make sure all the terms are clear, but if something is confusing, please, please let me know in the comments. Knitting has its own language of sorts, and I've been speaking it for so long that I don't always realize that something may not be common knowledge.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading! If you liked the story, kudos are fantastic. Comments absolutely brighten my life. If you'd like to talk about this story, knitting, these characters, or why alpacas are fuzzy beings of joy and llamas are judgmental hellions, you can always email me at teatearsandbbc@gmail.com


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